We have enjoyed some magnificent skyscapes!

Egypt. Day 1. JFK to Cairo.

Bonnie and I both slept on the plane for about 5 hours each. During the night I watched 2 movies and read a couple of magazines. During the middle of the night a man stopped to talk with me and I discovered that I knew him at BoA in Asia, Gene Sloboda!  He now lives in Las Vegas but stayed in Asia for many years, ending up as Manger of Kuala Lumpur, and then retiring from BoA in SF. He was headed to Jordan for a tour before seeing Egypt.

At 2:30am NY time, or 8:30am, Cairo time, (henceforth all times will be Egyptian), the Captain stated that we would land in about 2 hours, at 10:40am.  We were flying over the Mediterranean Ocean, having already passed over Portugal and Spain, heading toward Algeria before landing at Cairo.  It took 5 hours to cross the Atlantic. 

We had breakfast next, again, a simple but OK meal with croissant, yogurt, cheese, strawberry jam, OJ, coffee, and water.  The bathrooms are now a disaster!  It appears to me that about half of the passengers are tourists with the remainder Egyptians.  This flight reminds me of some of our flights on Philippine Airlines to Manila, except we flew either 1^st Class or Business Class then.  I continued reading my current book, “The Associate” by John Grisham.  

While descending to land at Cairo the nose camera came on again.  What appeared to be a fertile valley later was determined to be the Sahara Desert!  Apparently the nose camera has a green filter on it turning brown sand into a green field.  It was partly sunny and we passed over several small towns.  Our actual touch down was at 10:55.  The Cairo airport is modern with a new terminal and many large industrial buildings in the area. (http://www.cairo-airport.com/) There are also many large apartment blocks. We taxied for a long time to arrive at the gate, passing by a lot of brown sand between the runways.  It was 24 degrees C or 75 degrees F.  To my surprise, very few planes were in the large airport.

We went through the usual immigration and customs, buying our visa from a bank in the terminal at $20 each.  I also bought some Egyptian pounds.  The FX rate was 5.47 EGP for $1, which remained somewhat constant during this trip.  The crowds were unusually light, perhaps only our plane passengers were being processed. 

Our tour guide, Hossein, met us before we retrieved our luggage, and then arranged for a cart to haul the luggage to our waiting bus.  Porters were clamoring for work and requesting “baksheese” or a tip, for nothing.  This became a customary occurrence everywhere we went.  The 30 minute bus ride to our hotel was over busy but not crowded streets due to the Friday Muslim observance of prayers at the Mosque.  We passed by several modern areas near the airport but the closer we got to downtown the older the buildings became.

Our tour guide informed us not to drink the local water, not to use ice cubes in drinks, nor eat fruits that have not been peeled, or any raw vegetables, especially salads. UGH!  We have an interesting tour group of 25 persons, mostly married couples.  Many are retired, but several are still working.  Many different nationalities are present, even including a Portuguese speaking couple from Brazil.  Beside GJ, (Gloria and Jose, who traveled with us during this trip) another couple came from CA and they reside in Los Gatos. Lots of other areas of the US are represented.

Our drive from the airport to downtown Cairo was fascinating!  The initial drive began in Heliopolis, the upscale suburb of Cairo where President Mubarak maintains his residence and offices.  Most of the buildings are unattractive high rise apartment blocks.  All rooftops are studded with satellite dishes.  The skyline is shared with minarets and domes and high rise office buildings and hotel towers.  The city of Cairo has over 20 million residents!  It is crowded and dirty and a mixture of ancient, medieval and modern. Unfortunately the city may be one of the most polluted in the world. It does not receive enough rain to wash off the buildings or streets from its ever present dust (from the Sahara) and smoke. The people are dressed in a range of clothing from western-style business suits to Arabic gowns and robes, with most everything in-between.  I do not understand how women will dress in full body burka and share the sidewalks with European dressed women without considerable envy.

The Ramses Hilton is large brown concrete structure built in 1959. (http://www1.hilton.com/en_US/hi/hotel/CAIRHTW-Ramses-Hilton/index.do)  It is located across a busy highway interchange from the Nile River.  The crowded and busy lobby was quite attractive with lots of marble surfaces, polished wood panels and trim, and high ceilings.  It has been significantly and attractively refurbished since it was built.   We had to wait far too long, in my opinion, for our room assignments, but they were finally distributed.  We received a 7^th floor room overlooking the city with a king bed, but since ashtrays were all over the room, it clearly was not non-smoking as requested.  However, the room did not smell bad and it was quite nice and large with a modern bathroom.  The hotel is listed as being a 5 star hotel, but in my opinion it is a 3 star hotel.

About 2:30pm we met “GJ” at the English Pub, (in the Hilton) for our first Stella and some food.  Stella is a subsidiary of Heineken and is an excellent local beer. (http://www.egypt-cairo.com/egypt_beer.html)  It has 4.5% alcohol and is packaged in 750ml green glass bottles.  In most locations we paid 30 EGP for a bottle, way above the local’s price of 5 EGP.  I had bangers and mash for lunch and Bonnie had a bowl of chips (French fries). 

Exhausted from the long flight and a night with not enough sleep, we parted company about 3:15pm, and went to our respective rooms for a nap.  We slept until 6pm and then got dressed for dinner.  We met our tour guide at 7:15 in the lobby for a bus ride to the ship for our Nile Dinner Cruise. However, the bus was late (due to traffic) by 30 minutes. The traffic on the streets on the way to the ship was horrible!  I cannot remember anyplace with more congestion!  Traffic laws are mere suggestions and cars and busses are careening everywhere jockeying to get ahead of the next car. We arrived at our destination about 8:15.  OMG!  The dinner cruise ship is a fancy vessel designed to look like a barge that a pharaoh may have owned. (http://www.thepharaohs.com.eg/nile-pharaoh.htm#)  It had 3 floors and we were assigned with many other passengers to the 2^nd floor.  We had a tasty buffet dinner of unknown origin.  However, any concerns of mine vanished when I visited the dessert table.  It was excellent!   We all drank Stellas during dinner.  Wine was available but only the local variety.  Entertainment began as we continued to circle about the Nile River with its many high rise international hotels ablaze in neon glory.  We had a male twirler, similar to the twirling dervish we saw in Istanbul but this person was a better entertainer.  He was able to twirl his skirt in all sorts of manner, whether on his waist or above his arms.   Next came the traditional belly dancer.  This woman turned out to be an attractive and busty American woman with the name of Lela.  She was not an excellent dancer but she was fun to watch.  After the entertainment was over, we went up to the top open air deck to take pictures and view the city.  It was cool and refreshing on the top deck.

The cruise was over about 10:15 when we returned to our dock and disembarked into the crowded and busy streets again.  We had to wait for our bus again, but it did return us to our hotel about 10:45pm.  We said “goodnight” to GJ and were asleep by 11pm.